here to talk about next week's election. "ac 360" starts now. piers, thank you very much. good evening. 10:00 even the east coast. 26 hours since sandy first came ashore. breaking news, late word that new york's john f. kennedy international airport is open, but only for incoming flights and additional limited service resumes tomorrow, a major development for anybody trying to come into this city, and also ultimately trying to leave. new york's laguardia, which mains serves domestic destinations remains closed due to flooding. newark liberty international airport reopens at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow for limited service. good signs of life. a sign of life, returning to normal, but only beginning. small signs, 18 new yorkers we know have now lost their lives

in this storm. 15 elsewhere. nearly 7 million are without power tonight, including about 750,000 here in new york city. the entire facade of this building behind me collapsed. between chelsea and greenwich village. the picture says a lot. take a look at that the entire facade of the building, being used frankly as an illegal hotel, mostly for overseas visitors, the entire facade is gone. the four rooms tell the story of this dorm in miniature. thankfully wean nobody was killed in there, it could have been much worse. uptown, about 2 miles north of where i'm standing right now, in chelsea, a dangling crane. another story entirely. a dagger pointed 90 stories down. thousands in i nearby hotel and apartment, all have been evacuated. the building is lit up tonight,

but you see the crane there, the boom hanging down, the tension is palpable, about a seven-block area all around there has been cordoned off. relief elsewhere, well, redeems almost anything. take a look at perhaps the most beautiful thing to come out of this storm. her name is alice rosenbaum, the tiny one in her father's arms, the fact she's safely home tonight, especially after what she went through it would make anyone smile. born in a hospital where they lost power, and the backup generators failed. even here, even now, it's almost enough to redeem everything else are you going to see tonight. almost. starting with jason carroll. >> a disaster still ongoing, the images overwhelming. >> this was a devastating storm. >> a tanker on shore. >> it is beyond anything i thought i would ever see. >> miles of shoreline, washed away.

home after oceanfront home, surrounded by water, yet consumed by fire. in west virginia, and across the appalachians, ice and snow. all of it, all of this, the legacy of sandy, a superstorm that's living up to the name as bad as the billing, as terrible as the forecast. >> just these massive -- look at the waves coming through behind me. >> new jersey caught some of the first of it, and much of the worst. >> we're at a moment now where evacuation is no longer possible, and we won't be able to come and rescue people. >> reporter: those who stayed woke up to this. in toms river, new jersey, and elsewhere, ems phones rang nonstop, and rescue continued today until night fall. crews pulling several hundred people to safety. >> we're not sure if it was a levee, compromise -- something was compromised there. >> reporter: inland and farther north, the police chief of bergen county, new jersey, describes a brief that left

several towns and one trailer park as much as five feet deep in dangerous water. >> i may have lost my home, may have lost my car, but i'm alive. >> as everyone knows in new york, sandy packed a punch for the metropolitan area yesterday. i don't think words like catastrophic or historic are too strong to explain the impact. i saw people put themselveses in the way of danger that was really inspirational. and if it wasn't for the national guard and state police and n wrnch pd and what the agencies at this table did, i think that the number of the loss of life would have been much greater. >> reporter: manhattan is an island. lower manhattan is at sea level at the best of times and nearly 14 feet below it last night. water filled the riverfront, then the streets, then tunnels, cars, and subways, then at a con ed power plant serving lower

manhattan. a spark, transformer explosion, and a massive fireball. the last night the skyline would see and might see for the next several days, 750,000 without electricity and somewhere down there in the darkness, producer rose reported. >> absolutely nobody outside, the police earlier were driving up and down the street where the water comes up to and had pull horns, telling people if you're on the first floor, you should get out, you should evacuate, move to higher ground. >> reporter: new york university's massive riverfront hospital lost power, backups failed and evangsituaticuationsr 250 patients, including critically ill babies. >> the risk is that it will continue to spread. >> reporter: new york city's breezy point, home after home,

80, maybe more, went up in flames. jason carroll, cnn, new york. >> the devastation in breezy point is really hard to kind of wrap your mind around. 80 homes went up in flames. homes that are very close to one another, and that high wind brought those flames leaping from one house to another. we are live in breezy point with the latest. >> reporter: anderson, somebody who lived here, said fighting a fire in a hurricane is a lesson in futility. you can see some foundations, but pretty much nothing else. cars incinerated, this we believe is a jeep. this we believe say honda. it is hard to make out anything in the massive debris. there were 1200 firefighters were who trying to put out this six alarm blaze. it followed the exact path of the wind, southeast.

taking the homes in a pie-shaped direction. one official says probably as many as 100 homes which may have been devastated. a tight community, as i was walking through, folks would actually come to see if anything was salvagable. one man checking out his sister's home. not only his sister's home burnt to the ground, but his father in law's home. three sisters, homes side by side by side. that kind of community, anderson. one home miraculously was spared, belongs to a 9/11 widow we're told, and old the siding melted, but the intensity of that heat, so dramatic, we can tell you the smell of smoke so heavy in the air, firefighters spent the better part of the day, simply trying to put out blazes that kept erupting, one on the wires, it's pitch dark, you can't really even see all of the electricity is off. they don't know whether the fire was caused by a transformer or downed power lines, but one of

those posts, holding all of the power lines, that was on fire at one point today. this is still very much in progress, people trying to figure out exactly what they will do next. right now, they are simply trying to catch their breath, anderson. >> yeah, no loss of life, though, among those 80 homes, correct, deborah? >> reporter: that's correct. they haven't gotten in to search all of the homes. right now, they do believe all of them were evacuated. one firefighter said the water got so high, he thought he was going to drift off, heard people screaming, came back, rescued 15 people. >> one blessing, no loss of life there. appreciate the report. hoboken, new jersey, home to 50,000 people. sits just across the hudson river from manhattan, west of where i'm standing, and today it woke up to this. the city occupies one square mile and much its southern end is underwater. the mayor has been asking for help from the national guard,

tonight, laid word they are on the way. gary tuchman joins me with the latest. gary, we learned that information about two hours ago, that is certainly welcome news to the mayor and everybody there. she is desperate to get some help there. >> reporter: very desperate. the very unusual situation here, anderson. you have the entire city without power. 50% of the city underwater. but most alarmingly, the mayor says thousands of residents trapped inside their homes in the cold and dark. there are search missions going on for priority situations for emergency situations, they are taking a front loader, not a boat. a front loader through the water. i went with the mayor, we sat on the shovel as we went through the town and saw people in the windows waiving us. children, men, women, old people. most of them were smiling, because unlike new orleans, we saw the same scene, they know the water is recede. the hope is most can get out of

their home tomorrow. not just the water making them stuck. also, live power lines in the water, dangerous to walk around and people are still in their homes. we saw people trying to walk out and that was scary, trying to drive their cars through four feet of water. their cars got stuck and then they started to push their cars, and at this point, a police officer got out of vehicle we were in, grabbed three of the people, one at a time, put him on his shoulder, put one woman on the shoulders, got her on the front loader, two more people came on, they were rescued. right now, they are ophoping al of the people can get out. literally thousands in the homes, cold, dark, most of them have some food. very alarming and we talked to the mayor, she was very concerned at that point she had no help at all from the state of new jersey. listen. >> we have half of hoe boeksen flooded.

anywhere from 15 to 25,000 people that are -- >> still in those homes. >> still in their homes. >> reporter: and they can't get out. >> they can't get out. i'm asking for the national guard to come in we're desperate. we need their specialized equipment to get through the city streets to safely get to people and evacuate those. >> reporter: are you asking for the national guard. >> i've been asking. there is a chain. command. they are coming, they are coming, they are coming, they are not here. and i had to tell a grandmother. i'm so sorry, we can't get your grandchildren. 7-month-old twins running out of food. last spoke to her daughter this morning and she said i think i have enough food to get through the night. 7-month-old twins i cannot get to. i cannot help them. >> i want to ask you about the situation with the national guard, before i do, those images of that police officer carrying folks on his shoulders, putting

them in the front loader, so many first responders who have suffered losses of their own and yet are out there. he's in waist deep water doing that, it's an amazing picture and just a testament to the dedication of a lot of folks right now. a heavy police presence in new york. you see them out on the streets riding around. a lot of fire trucks work to pass me by. they have been working nonstop. these folks are really -- folks from the mta trying to g get ths back online. we got word that they are on in hoboken. >> reporter: literally, we got word from the town, they heard from the state of new jersey, the national guard is coming and will be arriving tomorrow to help with rescues. water will go down a little bit. not enough for people to walk out on their own. they'll go in behind me and get people out of their homes.

you have to remember, this is very different from the other hurricane. this is very cold weather and these people have no heat while they are waiting. >> yeah, incredible. gary, appreciate the reporting. i know it's been a long 26 hours for you. fire trucks passing. we've been hearing fire engines all day long. so many places first responders are trying to get to. it will be a long several days, and as i said, new york itself, below 31st street on the west side. below 39th street on the east side. all without power, cell phone service, e-mails, folks trying to get e-mails wherever they can. gathered around the satellite truck and have been for several hours, because there is wi-fi in the sat truck and groups, 30, 40 people sometimes, just there with their mobile devices trying to get in touch with friends, loved ones, you can follow me on twitter @anderson cooper. between us. just arced the mayor of

atlantic city new jersey and the mayor of seaside heights. where the homes took a pounding. the pictures there are extraordinary and so difficult to see. but the people are made of tougher stuff and you will hear from them tonight. and the remarkable rescue effort going on all across new jersey. that as gary said, notary yet, not by a long shot. be right back.

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i love logistics. welcome back. are you looking at video from yesterday in new york. it captured the moment when the arm of a cop structure crane toppled over and started dangling above midtown manhattan. hard to look at and see from that vantage point. the crane is still dangling as we speak. mayor michael bloomberg said that experts believe the crane is stable and tomorrow the workers will be able to pull the boom back toward the building and work to dismantle it. president obama and governor chris christie will tour part of the state of new jersey. lorenzo langford joins us now by phone. mayor langford, your city was slammed by the superstorm, the

boardwalk smashed, areas flooded. if you can, give us a status update. >> we are coming out of this thing in pretty good shape, believe it or not. our -- our biggest concern at this point is trying to restore power to one-third of our residents once we are able to do that, i am hopeful that the state police will allow for passage of our residents who have moved to higher ground in shelters outside of the city, to enable them to come back in and return to their humble abodes, that's their biggest concern right now. >> were there any casualties? >> we had one casualty. we haven't determined as of yet whether it was an atlantic city resident. one of the shelters where our residents had been moved to, did -- i should say, that's the

only reported fatality we've heard of, and in addition to that, we are blessed from the standpoint we've had no serious injuries, loss of limbs or anything like that, so the human toll, damage has been minimal and one death is certainly too many, but we were blessed in that respect. >> yeah, that's amazing, considering what we saw earlier. are you getting the federal, the state help that you need? if not, what do you need from them? >> well, we were on the phone twice today, as a matter of fact, with fema and also with the president directly and his staff and they have assured us that the full weight of the government in terms of their resources, is at our beckoning and certainly once we have had an opportunity to do a full assessment with respect to our needs, we will be calling the federal government and asking for those resources. >> had you quite a dustup with the governor of your state,

chris christie, who basically accused you of ignoring state-issued evacuation orders, telling people they could shelter in place as a last resort. what do you make of that? earlier, you said governor christie should call you and be man enough to own up to what you said is the mischaracterizations of what you advised residents. have you heard anything from him? >> i have not. i expect some point tomorrow our paths will cross. listen, what's important is to make sure all of us, the governor, the mayor and every elected official makes sure that we keep what's really important first and foremost and that's the safety of the constituents that we serve. anything personal between the governor and i, i look beyond that, i'm more magnanimous about that. i'm not about personalities, i'm about principle. we have a job to do, and that's exactly what i'm doing to do. >> an extraordinary 26-plus hours for you. i appreciate your time.

we'll continue to check in with you in days ahead. in bergen county, new jersey, major parts underwater. several towns underwater. when the levee broke, several people had to be rescued. maggie lake is reporting. what's the latest? >> reporter: we have rescue operations suspended for the most part. they will resume again tomorrow. we have watched thousands of people stream into the site today with little more than the clothes on their back, their pets, their children and main a small bag this is a community that is absolutely in shock. we knew where we were on the coast when the storm hit in asbury park. expecting flooding. no one expected this. this is an evacuation order. this is not a community that has seen anything of this magnitude before. in the towns of little falls and manakee touring around, and the water at low tide, still waist deep, cars floating in the

streets. people with water on the first floor of their homes. anderson, i'm from new jersey, the people here are tough and they look out for each other and that's exactly what we saw today. we hooked up with a family, they have a refurbished military vehicle, decided to come down and see if they could lend a hand, and much needed. working in conjunction with the national guard. we rode with them as we rode around, house to house and many elderly people they picked up. people saying don't take us now, go to the older people, they need your help. come back and get us, we saw it over and over again. the older people got in the truck, one man just had a pacemaker put in, were very, very disturbed, they had never seen anything like this in their lives. very scared, but maintained a sense of humor. thousands came out, expect to go in tomorrow. so far, no known fatalities here, but officials want to make sure they get everyone out who needs to get out. one of the problems, people did not have information, power out,

no cell phones, didn't know what to do or where to go. >> yeah, and that's still a problem for so many. no power, no cell phones, hard to get in touch with loved ones and the like. maggie, we'll continue to check in with you in that community over the next several days. so many places we're trying to bring you stories from. give you as much up-to-date information as possible. if you're in an area and you have power and you are hearing us, and you know people who don't have power, try to pass along whatever information you can, however you get the information. governor chris christie today described the information at the jersey shore as unthinkable. that's the word he used. it's certainly true. hard to wrap your brain around pictures like these from the national guard. look at that. that's the coastline of seaside heights. houses buried in the sand. sand washed into homes at least 100 yards from the normal high tide line. i spoke with seaside heights mayor, bill acre.

what are you contending with tonight? what is the number one priority right now? >> right now, we're just trying to get through the evening. we're trying to secure some diesel fuel to keep the police station running and the borough hall, which is the only building that has the power through the generator right now. we're trying to get over 100 gallons of fuel from the oem right now. that's what we're doing at the time. >> do you -- the pictures are just horrific to look at. do you have any sense of the scope of the destruction? >> i -- i'm glad you have a picture, because if you don't see it, you can't fully understand it and as you go through it, i'm not ashamed to say it, i'm overwhelmed. i feel so small against what we have to do to go forward here.

i'm going to need a lot of help from the federal government, the state government, the local government, the individuals in our community, professionals that certainly know a lot more than myself. because we're going to be going basically from the ground up. seaside heights as it wass was before it never be known that way again. >> i understand there were rescue efforts under way earlier today. can you give us the latest on that? >> yes, most of the rescues, we've gotten out, just about everybody that we can at this point in time. we feel like that we've gotten everybody that's wanted to go out. some people waited until a very, very late date, and we got some very special people over here that have a wonderful job, volunteers that want to do nothing more than just help put their own life on the line to

just help these people. and we're very grateful to have individuals like that. our rescue is just about i would say about 98% complete. >> mayor, my thoughts and prayer, as are the thoughts of prayers of so many with you and your community right now. i wish you the best. we'll talk to you in the days ahead. i hope you get the help you need quickly. >> thank you, sir. >> seeing the destruction there, really just a -- it's hard to imagine. in new york, new jersey, the problems have been wind, water, and fire in west virginia, it is snow. if you can believe it. blizzard conditions, we have the latest on that piece of the puzzle of the superstorm next. we'll be right back. you see us, at the start of the day. on the company phone list that's a few names longer. you see us bank on busier highways.

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welcome back to our continuing coverage of the aftermath of hurricane sandy. we keep getting new pictures that show this storm's strength. different prospectives from people in their own homes. incredible video of winds uprooting a tree on the backyard of a north shore of long island. takes a few seconds. as you can see right there. you can see the ground starting to move up. obviously a very old tree. take a look and listen. >> uh-oh. uh-oh. so sad to see. sandy still hitting parts of west virginia hard tonight. with snow, not rain.

heavy, wet snow, weighing down trees, knocking down power lines. utility companies say more than 340,000 customers without power. some areas of state under a blizzard warning tonight. one death is being reported so far there. martin savidge joins us from west virginia. martin, the conditions you have seen for the last -- well, all day long, incredible. how is it right now? >> reporter: it is amazing. we're still talking about the same essential storm that walloped the eastern coastline, but now in the mountains of west virginia. totally different impact, but still dangerous and essentially problematic for some time to come. snow still falls, snow totals starting to be measured in feet, not inches anymore, and the blizzard warnings we thought would expire have been extended, through the night tonight and apparently through most of the day tomorrow, it is still blowing, still drifting, temperatures dropping, plows will have a hard time keeping up. you mentioned hundreds of thousands without power, also,

of course, without heat. that will be a danger. the national guard has now been put into action and going door to door in some areas for people who may be ace lated. cut off from the snow, checking on their welfare and brought in heavy equipment. the snow is so deep, so thick and so heavy, the typical plow is not going to cut it anymore. they need earth moving equipment to handle it. they don't know what the final totals will be. they won't know until it stops snow, and no one knows what it will be. >> it looks like it's not snowing right now. do they know how long the snow is expected to last for? >> well, it actually is. it is not snowing as heavily. but still falling and a fairly steady pace it will depend what elevation, what part of the state. higher you go, the more snow you will get. to the south and southeast, you

will also see more snow. two feet, three feet. could go higher in some areas. >> wow. marty, try to get warm, stay warm, appreciate your reporting all day long. let's check in with chad myers, a big overview of what is the storm is doing right now. chad, where is this storm? what does it look like? >> it judge is just north of pittsburgh in the allegheny mountains, south of buffalo, western new york. what it did today, a couple of things, one severe thunderstorm rolled right through the boston area, right into new hampshire, vermont, put down hail. capsized some boats with winds about 60 to 70 miles per hour. big waves on lake michigan here as the wind coming down the lake at 40, and cleveland, had a wind gust to 67. today, only 50. still pretty good. here is the snow, more dantogan

elkins. and there is a 17-mile-per-hour gust there, and somewhere in there. yes, the snow is still coming down and still blowing, but tapering off. still will snow, are you asking how long will it snow? at least another 24 hours. look at the numbers. red house, maryland, garrett county, 29 inches. flat top, 28. davis in west virginia. and 24 inches of snow and still snowing at each one of those locations. eastern maryland, the winter when it comes to rain or maybe not, considering what it was. and mt. washington, 140 miles per hour, highest wind gust from the islip and all approaching that 90-mile-per-hour wind gust from the storm yesterday. tapering off obviously. still seeing flooding. a picture from jetblue of what laguardia airport looked like today. today's surge wasn't nearly what it was last night. so laguardia will remain closed and right now that number is

still indefinitely. >> wow. and temperatures dropping here in new york tonight. i can tell you there will be a lot of very cold people in their homes tonight without electricity. chad, thank you for all you've done over the last 24, 26 hours. tonight, one new york family is telling their unforgettable story. an extraordinary evacuation of nyu medical center, across town about 20 blocks or so north of where i'm standing, their newborn baby, less than 48 hours old when the power went out entirely, the backup generators failed as well. never dreamed they would have to flee to safety from the hospital. >> you assume that power is going to be going in the hospital. you figure the nyu, new york city, things were -- probably one of the safest places to be.

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this is what it sounded like last night when sandy hit. one of our cnn ireporters captured this from outside his apartment in jersey city, just across the hudson from where i am right now in manhattan. a harrowing 26 hours for sick patients that had to be evacuated from nyu medical center. can you imagine? having to be evacuated, being brought down several flights of stairs in total darkness. and the hospital lost power, backup generators failed. patients had to be carried down. as i said, as many as 15 flights

of stairs. flashlights, the only illumination, for some of the tiniest patients, we're talking unfants on ventilators, nurse has to manually pump air into their chests while going down the stairs, patients were taken to five different different hospitals including mt. sinai, one of the extraordinary stories that occurred here last night, the most critically ill were moved first, a dramatic and terrifying night for patients and their caregivers, charles rosenbaum and kim will never forget it. their new daughter, alice, less than 48 hours old. born on sunday. look at her. four weeks early, but very healthy. their first child. i spoke with charles earlier and alice joined us as well. charles, first of all, congratulations on the birth of your beautiful first child. alice is adorable. and i want to welcome alice as well. she came in the world four weeks early.

should have been at the hospital until today for monitoring. how is she doing, your wife doing, everybody doing? >> thank you. she's doing great. we feel very fortunate that we were able to get through this, and she's -- she's pretty happy, healthy, i think she's opening her eyes for you. been pretty sleepy. 36 weeks old. so, you know, we were definitely concerned that her health was going to be okay through this, and people at nyu were great. so we're very happy the way this turned out. >> >>. >> i've seen pictures of you and alice with flow sticks. walk us through what it was like when the power went out, when you knew it was gone for good? >> definitely an interesting time there. we got there on saturday night at 3:00 in the morning. the -- we didn't deliver her -- my wife delivered her sunday at

9:00 a.m., and we thought everything was kind of business as usual. we assumed that power was going to be going in the hospital. we figured nyu and new york city, things were probably one of the safest places to be, but, you know, as time went on, turns out that we're up in our room, and on the 13th floor, when the power went out, generators went on, and i think that was about 7:00 p.m., and then shortly after that, i think one of the generators failed, and the power on our side of the floor went out. we had the glow sticks got passed around by nurses who seemed pretty calm and confident so we weren't too worried at this time. there was still the electrical still going on on the other side of the floor. 13th floor, and so i actually went over there to plug my phone in to get it charged, and i heard the nurses talking about in 15 minutes, all of the

electiricity was going to be going down. i scooted back to my room and told my wife kim and we talked about what is going to be the next step? >> the -- you know, it's not often that anything good comes out of a storm, but i got to say your daughter is the most beautiful thing i've seen that has come out of this storm. and i'm just so happy that everybody is well and safe and healthy and, charles, i wish and you baby al and your entire family the best. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> and our best to kim. glad she's doing well. as great as that story is, as wonderfully as it ended for them, questions about why the backup system at nyu failed, the irony, nyu, new york university, the law school, they do have

generators and one of the few places in lower manhattan that have power. there were kids studying in the library, lights on, computers working, connected to the internet. the sickest patients at nyu, weren't evacuated before the storm hit, that's also raising questions. baby alice is health ooechl other babies evacuated from the hospital were much more fragile, one of them, a newborn girl half the size of alice. dr. sanjay gupta joins us live with her story. >> this is the story of emma, also beautiful, but fragile as you say. also the story of the doctors and the nurses who saved her in the middle of hurricane sandy, while her parents were stranded so far away. monday night, this baby, 13-day-old baby martinez, a preemie, weighing only two pounds, suddenly needed to be transferred to mt. sinai.

challenging under any conditions and these were extraordinary ones. at about 10:30 p.m., the ceo of mt. sinai, dr. kenneth davis, got the call. within the hour, babies from lang langone started arriving. >> it's frightening, and when you are dealing with tiny babies that are so fragile, it really can be an extraordinary circumstance. >> reporter: in front of nyu medical center, mt. sinai is about four clocks to the west. just over there is the east river. at company 7:00 p.m., there was no water inside that hospital. at 7:45, there was ten feet. the power started to go out and then the generator failed, and then all of a sudden, the patients and the doctors found themselves in a worst-case scenario. as for the parents of little baby martinez, they found out the hospital and their daughter would be evacuated when they

watched mayor michael bloomberg on tv. shortly after, they lost power and they had no idea where their baby would be taken. >> confirmed by a family member they were calling me on the phone, because suddenly i lost outage in my apartment. no access to the tv no, access to the internet. no phone service at home. just our cell. >> imagine the desperation, the nightmare. 13-day-old baby rushed through the streets of new york city in the middle of hurricane sandy, while they were stuck at home in new jersey. all they could do was hope, pray, and wait for word of where they could find their newborn. >> all of the bridges were closed, and we had no choice, but to go back home and just sit and wait for today to get here. and it was very long night, very, very long night. i haven't had even one hour of sleep. >> dr. kenneth davis, the man

who okayed the transfer, and now for the first time, he will meet the baby he helped save. >> oh, my goodness. >> thank you so very much. >> so hard. >> and you're the dad? >> wow. it's going to we okay. >> any names picked out? >> her name is emma sophia. >> i'll tell you, it's an amazing story, anderson, as you can see there. there were ten babies that came to sinai, they are all doing well. incredible transport. a difficult thing to do. and i'll tell you, look at the images in the nicu, so many families around as well. you don't typically see that in intensive care units, but they wanted to be with their loved one as you might imagine. >> i keep thinking about the nurses, ordinarily, the doctors, bringing the babies down the multiple flights of stairs. do we know why the backup generators failed. >> i spoke to several contacts.

there was a primary source, a backup generator and a second backup generator as well. according to the people we talked to, they do test these things, there is a protocol in place since the blackout of 2003. there is not an answer to that. there was a lot of flooding. have you been reporting on that. within 45 minutes, ten feet of water into langone hospital. but why two failed is still unclear. >> all right. hopefully in the next day or two, we'll get answers on that. sanjay, we appreciate the reporting. both president obama and mitt romney called off appearances. the official campaigning may have stopped. but photo-opes have not. with elections a week away, every word matters. raw politics when we continue. up the ante. and if you stumble, you get back up. up isn't easy, and we ought to know.

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attention to the storm, you have to be honest, politics never far away here is dana bash. >> reporter: president obama cancelled official campaign events, but this close to election day, everything is political. even this unannounced trip to the red cross. >> america is with you. we are standing behind you, and we are going to do everything we can to help you get back on your feet. >> reporter: invaluable imagery and opportunity to be seen in command. >> i want you to cut through red tape, cut through bureaucracy, there is no excuse for inaction at this point. >> reporter: speaking of imagery for a second day, the white house released a photo of the president on the case in the situation room. >> and thank you so very much. i love and you appreciate you, thank you very much. >> reporter: mitt romney called off his campaign events too, but stayed firmly planted in ohio, the mother of all swing states, inviting reporters to box and bag food for hurricane victims

back east. >> we have heavy hearts as you know with the suffering going on in a major part of our country. >> reporter: although this certainly looks like a romney campaign rally, he restricted his remarks to sandy. >> a lot of people hurting this morning and last night. the storm goes on. i've had the chance to speak with some of the governors and the affected areas and they have talked about a lot of people having hard times. >> reporter: romney's running mate appeared at a hurricane relief center in his home state of wisconsin, another battleground. the vice president talked to reporters in ohio, to applaud his boss' leadership. >> i have never seen a guy so focused. >> reporter: nothing like the power of incouple beency in a diseaster, if used right. but the politics of crisis is complicated. one of the governors the president is talking to is one of romney's biggest supporters. >> i was on the phone at midnight with the president, he

has designated new jersey as a major disaster area. the president has been outstanding in this. >> reporter: a cringe worthy moment for the romney campaign. >> i don't give a damn about election day. it doesn't matter a lick to me at the moment. i have much bigger fish to fry than that. so do the people of new jersey. >> reporter: christie wasn't the only gop governor in sandy's path to hear from obama. pennsylvania and virginia were also on a presidential call on tuesday. >> dana joins me now. you said in your piece, the president will be with governor christie tomorrow in new jersey. we'll be covering that closely there is some politicking going on underneath the radar, isn't there? >> there is, of course. no surprise. this case, it's democrats really pushing the story that romney

would slash federal disaster relief. even get rid much fema, and based on a debate last year. and he said that the federal role should be limited and romney was asked multiple times today to clarify the position on fema he didn't answer. afterward, romney's campaign insists he would eliminate fema, that may be true, but the plan to reduce the deficit would include cutting spending, and that would likely include fema. and paul ryan released his budget last year, which caused for a 35% cut to fema. >> we'll see if he talks about that tomorrow on the campaign trail. dana bash, appreciate it. we'll be right back. now you don't have to go to a bank to get the things you want from a bank, like no-fee atms, all over the world. free checkwriting and mobile deposits. now depositing a check is as easy as taking a picture.

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